She Said Maybe

I really felt like watching the film after the teaser. It is a splendid-looking film that nicely and lightly shows a German-Turkish culture clash. The story is also quite interesting, with one or two twists. A bit like a Turkish, more modern Princess Diaries.

What I also found great: many beautiful and attractive people are in it, not only the two main actors but also some of the supporting actors. (What I also thought was great is that some of the actors speak Turkish or have Turkish roots. Really authentic! And it really made me want to go to Turkey.)

Great for a summer evening alone or together.

I'm giving this movie a 3/10 and not a 1 because it shows beautiful Turkish sights and Turkish people, and there is one sometimes entertaining side character. That's it. It has no other values. It's a ridiculously dumb and totally predictable story without a beat of original thought. I'm sure the original idea was simply an advertisement sponsored by the Turkish tourism department, but they decided that some minimal story should be added.

Waste of time. John, his family and her supposed friend Nora were total jerks! Why she went back to them and ended up with John is a mystery! She never wanted to marry him in the 1st place!

Much better ending if she had stayed in Turkey and taken over the family business and kept them out of the evil Gunr's hands. And gotten to know her real soulmate Kent better!

Turkish series are always promoting their country as the best in the world but this one went too far. All the plot is about is filthy rich people that live in palaces on Bosphorus, move around with cruisers and have endless money without working. One would think that this is the land of plenty whereas it is a land with a volatile currency, poor people struggling to survive and complete denial of fundamental human rights like the freedom of speech. Meanwhile the officers of international marketing are sponsoring movies like this one (and many others) on Netflix in order to make their country look more attractive and hopefully make it to the European Union.

While I can understand the idea behind the story and appreciate the Turkish-German point of view I was a bit disappointed by the movie itself. The dialogues felt superficial and unnatural (watched in German) and the story became unlogical very quick. Also this movie was supposed to show the Turkish culture but all one got was maybe some insights in the high society of Istanbul. The other cultural references felt rather cringe, clichéd and not at all what I would have portrayed as a person that has a lot of warm connections to this country and culture. I also read comments about the actors not being very good. I disagree in this point, I do think some really have potential, the problem was just that the dialogues were so weird and unnatural that probably the best actor would have had their problems performing that.

All in all I can say, the idea is good, love a Turkish perspective in German movies in general, maybe take some more inspiration from Turkish movies/shows next time, so it doesnt become another one of these awkward German films trying to be multi-cultural.